Railways came into
existence nearly 200 years ago after poor road surfaces were first improved by
laying timber or iron plates, on which horses could haul greater loads. Since
the Second World War, proposals have been made to reverse the process and
convert railways into roads. The most recent support for this old chestnut
appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on 3rd December 2000. Dominic Lawson wrote of
railways as “straight lines”, a description that is not borne out
by an examination of the infrastructure. It is an historical fact that many
landowners compelled railway companies to follow circuitous routes.

“The Twilight of the
Railways”

The first conversion proposal
[1] was advanced by Brigadier T.I. Lloyd in the 1950’s. He envisaged:-

A reserved toll road on the converted
railways, with no dangerous bends, having single carriageways which were safer
than dual carriageways because drivers would have to remain alert!

That use would be restricted to vehicles and
drivers, both of which would be subject to stringent tests.

High professional standards of driving would
be instituted, and subject to special driving licences.

Traffic would travel at an average of 60
mph, at 100 yard intervals, users achieving that voluntarily over the entire
system, round the clock and over the four seasons.

If drivers slowed down excessively at 24 ft
bridges and tunnels, the question of widening should be taken up.

Prompt sanding and snow clearance, and radar
fitted to vehicles to operate safely in fog.

New traffic rules: keep strictly in lane,
except at clearly marked places of transfer to adjacent lanes; no overtaking at
all on two lane stretches of roadway; no dawdling; special driving licences
would be forfeited for breaking the rules.

Buses, with 40 seats, would have one or two
trailers, which could be discarded in the non-rush hours and could also be used
as slip coaches. The buses would run when full, not to a timetable.

There would be no problem with the rush hour
at Waterloo,
the gross daily passengers are no more than 200,000 - requiring 60 seater
bus-trailer combinations from each of the 21 platforms at the rate of one every
one & a half minutes. He claimed that the rush hour flow of 840 vehicles -
one every 4.2 seconds - would not amount to the full capacity of one single
lane and mentioned the multiplicity of lanes at Clapham Junction.

Single track railways would be readily converted
into sub-standard two lane roads. The expense of raising them to full 22 ft
standard would no doubt be justified in some places.

Existing rail passenger and freight traffic
would require only 10,300 vehicles at 60 mph. These would consist of one-third
forty-seater buses and two-thirds twenty-ton lorries. These powered vehicles
would be supplemented by an abundance of trailers.

Debated by the Institution of Civil Engineers

His proposal was demolished
by road experts who attended the debate [2] in November 1955:-

Dr. Glanville,
Director of Road Research, Department of Scientific & Industrial Research -
forerunner of the Transport Research Laboratory: “Could not see how buses
could run, fully loaded for eight hours a day, six days a week, and if this did
not happen, the financial basis for conversion was affected most
seriously.The Minister of
Transport had stated that traffic lanes on motorways would be twelve foot wide,
further affecting the proposals which were based on ten foot lanes”.Dr. Glanville did not accept, that
“higher standards of driving, would be sufficient to overcome the dangers
of high speed traffic on the same carriageway”.

Major Aldington,
Technical Adviser, British Road Federation [3]: “Knew no one who believed
that a single 22ft or 24ft carriageway was adequate for heavy volumes of
traffic and said that it was quite preposterous”.He “viewed with alarm the prospect
of travelling at 60 mph on single carriageways against opposing traffic,
particularly at night with glaring headlights.Driving from London
to Birmingham,
[in 1955], at night was quite terrifying.It was impossible to get a 20ft carriageway through an ordinary double
line rail tunnel”.

Mr. Burnell,
London Transport Buses: “It was totally impracticable to ask staff to
drive on a road 22-24ft wide at such speeds. They would rightly refuse”.
He postulated a driver handing over to a relief driver saying: “Engine
pulling well, there is ice and snow and fog, but the radar is all right”.

Mr. Osborne,
Resident Engineer, Wilson & Mason: “Highway width must be 88-93ft
with dual 22ft carriageways and 15ft verges. Double track rail formation is
39ft reduced to 19-22 ft in tunnels and deep cuttings with retaining walls;
quadruple track was only 55ft wide. Gradients are a serious problem; less than
1 in 200 is inadequate for water drainage on roads, hence a completely new
drainage system would be necessary”. He contradicted Brigadier Lloyd who
had said there were no dangerous bends,
pointing out that “Railways had curves of 660-1,320ft radius, often on
viaducts, bridges or through tunnels, against a motorway standard of 2,865ft
and said conversion had no potential and was economically impossible”. He
added that “railway services would be completely withdrawn long before
roads were laid on which replacement services would operate”.

Other objections included:

Most railway junctions are on the flat and
would have to be replaced with flyovers or clover leaf junctions to allow
traffic to keep moving.

The enormous number of bridges and tunnels -
63,000 and 1,050 respectively [4] - represented major engineering obstacles;
30,000 under bridges would require new floors because rails were laid on
longitudinal girders which could not carry a roadway,

Much railway was built on embankments or in
cuttings - enormous road works would be required.

The incidence of accidents would be bound to
increase.

No vehicular provision would be available
for seasonal peaks, nor for sporting events.

Conversion was
supported by Professor Bondi, KingsCollege, London:
“A twin tracked railway was wide enough for one carriageway, without a
parking strip. A ten foot lane was adequate, more than eleven was positively
dangerous in encouraging small cars to pass. The Marylebone-Sheffield line
could be made a northbound road, and the Sheffield-St. Pancras a southbound
road!”

Other Weaknesses &
Problem Areas

Surprisingly, no
attention was focused, in the debate, on level crossings. Brigadier Lloyd
claimed that “junctions and level crossings were relatively
infrequent”. There were 24,000 level crossings over the 20,000 route
miles, plus thousands of junctions. He had not said how many crossings there
were, although the statistic was publicly available. In addition to 4,670
public level crossings, there were 19,700 unmanned Accommodation and Occupation
crossings providing access to farmer’s fields or residential property,
plus 2,500 public footpath crossings [5]. The attendant dangers and delays from
tractors and animals on crossings would be a serious problem, which he had
completely overlooked. The opportunity for them to cross between vehicles
travelling 100 yards apart at 60 mph would be virtually zero. New bridges would
be necessary at all such points. Nor did anyone challenge the prospect of 60
mph buses slipping trailers without stopping on a single carriageway - with
another vehicle 100 yards behind.

The cost of his “mobile
police and efficient breakdown service” was not brought into the
equation.Indeed many costs were not brought
into the equation

On 16th February
1955 the Minister of Transport informed Parliament [6] that, except in a few
instances, it is prohibitive to convert redundant railways into roads.

A third of route
mileage was single track, and a further 50% was only double track:-

No. of tracks

route miles [7]

Single line

6,773

Double line

10,302

Triple line

448

Four or more lines

1,503

Total

19,026

Track miles

35,704

Average

1.88

An examination of
the Department of Transport publication[8] on railway construction standards would have shown him that track
widths were too narrow for use as roads. Moreover, many rail routes were below
even those prescribed widths for historical reasons.

The British
Road Federation “Roadshow”

In 1984, the
British Road Federation held a series of meetings around the UK to pursue a campaign for
improved roads. In Manchester,
British Rail were invited to attend and I represented them. The speaker was Mr.
Gent, Director of the Federation.

The speaker
suggested converting under utilised or unused railways into roads. His views
were in conflict with those expressed by his predecessor at the Institute of Civil Engineers debate in 1955.

I said that only sixty out of 7,000 miles of
track closed in the past twenty years had been converted into roads and before
they set their sights on lines that they thought were under utilised, they
should convert the 6,940 miles of closed routes begging to be used.

On technicalities of conversion others
present had no facts. I pointed out that an independent survey by Coopers &
Lybrand Associates [9] showed that only one of ten lines recently considered
for closure had any prospect of conversion. Even that line
(Marylebone-Northolt), had less width than the minimum 7.3 metres required by
the Department of Transport for carriageways: being 6.9 metres or less, with
5.9 metres in one place.

I drew attention to the cover of their
publicity booklet depicting a High Speed Train on a single line passing under a
hump backed single arch bridge of low clearance, pointing out that it exposed
the conversion problem very clearly!

The speaker also
disregarded the costs of emergency services [10],the effects of pollution, structural
damage to buildings, pavements and verges and double glazing all of which fall
on others.Contrary to industrial
opinion, road haulage pays much less than it should for road use. Recent
research shows that “LGV’s only pay for around 59-69% of the costs
they impose on society.Per tonne
carried, rail produces around 80% less carbon dioxide than road”. [11]

The road lobby
argues that road taxes should be spent on roads. During the 123 years when railways
were privately owned, they were subject to corporate and other taxes, not a
penny of which was returned to them to spend on their “highway”,
built entirely at company expense. A further tax imposed on railways, from 1830
to 1929, but never on trams or buses, was “Passenger Duty” [12].
During two wars, Government froze rail prices at pre-war levels, to hold down
Government expenditure by over £1bn, in addition to imposing taxation and
Excess Profits Tax, whilst road transport profits were untouched, and even
allowed to escalate [13].Unlike
all other businesses, railways were not refunded 20% of Excess Profits Tax
after the 1939-45 war. British Railways did not pay taxes because Government
interference held fares up to 41 points below the inflation rate for 34
consecutive years, thereby cutting revenue by some £8billion [14]. The
road lobby overlooks that users get a hidden refund - from savings in running
costs gained by using new roads.

The Railway Conversion
Campaign

In a 1970 booklet
[15], the conversion lobby, list 29 instances of closed railways in England, Scotland
& Wales,
totalling 43 miles, that had been converted into roads, including five single
lines converted into dual carriageways. Fifteen were less than one mile in
length. The average length was 1.5 miles. Only five of the cases were double
lines. The rate of conversion was less than five miles pa.

The road lobby
places great emphasis on the subsidy paid to keep open rural branch lines, that
British Rail were prevented from closing by the Government! The fact that 15
years later, only 0.8% of closed lines which ranged from about 20 to 180 miles
in length, had been converted to roads, serves to show that railway lines are
not suitable for conversion. The road lobby average out total rail traffic over
the full route mileage, ignoring that two thirds of the system carried 99% of
rail traffic [16].

In 1989, the
Conversion lobby regurgitated Brigadier Lloyd’s discredited theory, and
advertised in the media [17]: “The railway system is only working at 3%
of its potential”,“a
Department with such poor utilisation ought to be sacked” and expressed
concern for “our precious green land”.My response to the Daily Telegraph
pointed out:-

Road utilisation was worse than rail, having
22 times as much road mileage, some 80-100 times as much acreage, for ten times
as much traffic.

If the League is concerned about “our
precious green land”, 60% of roads should be closed to bring road
utilisation up to British Rail’s level.

Under-utilised lines are mainly in rural
areas, and were kept open by Government decision, without subsidy for the first
twenty years of nationalisation. British Rail had to fund them from interest
bearing Treasury loans, which together with fares held below the R.P.I. had
caused the crippling deficit [18].

To be proved fatally wrong, anyone believing
that rail utilisation is 3%, need only sit on a main line for a few minutes,
not 58 minutes in an hour, which is the 97% that they claim is unused.

6,940 miles of railway closed since the
1960’s was available for conversion but remained unused .

Roads are built on the basis of social
benefit, an ingenuous formula based on the time road users may save by using
new roads. British Rail in contrast, had to justify investment in money
terms.

The Problem of Road Utilisation

A principal reason
for poor utilisation of roads is speed variation: 30-100mph on motorways, 10-70mph on other roads. It is bad
management in commuter peaks, to permit horses, 10 mph tractors and lorries so
heavily loaded that they cannot exceed 20-30 mph on a 60 mph road. Delays at
all times of the day, are caused by very wide loads that make their majestic
progress at horse drawn speeds. Some, unsupervised, technically legal, wide
loads are encountered on minor roads causing delays and potential danger for
other road users.

The road lobby
ignores the fact that juggernauts have to leave motorways to deliver in towns
and villages, where they negotiate road junctions by halting traffic movement
in all four directions. Some commercial premises have such restricted access
that vehicles shunt to and fro for up to five minutes to effect entry. The
ensuing delays can only be reduced by gutting commercial premises and
reconstructing local roads, with its attendant compulsory purchase of property.
More delays are caused by using roads to unload car transporters and other
vehicles for firms with inadequate access to premises. Selfish conduct, bad
lane discipline, and failures to observe the Highway Code exacerbate the
problem.

Despite the
appalling under utilisation of roads, users create worse problems. Ultra brief
media reports inform of mind-boggling hold-ups due to lorries turning over,
jack-knifing, shedding their loads and losing tyres, and many other vehicles
travelling too fast and too close. Ensuing delays are never translated into
time or money loss. No compensation is paid by offenders - if it were, via a
national fund, delays would plummet.

Converting
railways serving small towns and villages into roads would not change this
situation. The tracks, being double or single, would not offer the huge turning
areas required for LGV’s.

Hitherto, it has been claimed
that heavier goods vehicles reduce the cost of goods to the consumer. No
account has been taken of the increased costs borne by motorists who are
delayed behind heavy vehicles on “A”, “B” and other
roads. Most of this road mileage is not dual carriageway and is on routes that
are not paralleled by railways, which the conversion lobby argues, could be
converted to roads. Indeed, if 11,000 miles of railway were converted to roads,
it would not benefit one jot, millions of delayed journeys on 220,000 miles of
roads remote from a railway.

After 40 years of motorways,
no system has been developed which effectively diverts traffic held up by an
accident onto alternative routes. My experience is that radio warnings come
after one has passed the last exit, and arrived behind a two hour queue.
Additional alternative routes such as railways converted into roads would
therefore be wasted.

The Fall-out from Conversion

Converting
railways into roads would produce a serious Doomsday scenario, creating an
unending and inescapable burden, far in excess of any rail subsidy. An
inability of the Exchequer to swallow the increasing burden of road costs would
focus economies on other Public expenditure. Bridge costs, hidden in railway
“losses”, would fall directly onto the roads budget, where they
should have been since 1930, as the Minister of Transport had recommended [19].
Overbridges would have to be widened and lifted to reduce the risk of bridge
bashing.

The burden on the
State would be exacerbated by the consequential increase in fatalities and
injuries. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph in 1991, I pointed out that
railway accidents from 1952 - which the Telegraph [20] had used as a base line
to criticise railways, had killed an average of eight p.a. compared to an
average of nearly 5,000 p.a. on roads. The number injured by accidents in both
modes is equally disparate. The cost of this excessive number of road
casualties is a hidden cost of road transport. Given that there was about ten
times as much traffic on roads as railways in 1991, conversion would have
increased fatalities from eight p.a. of those using rail to one-tenth of total
road fatalities - about 500 p.a. A letter in the Sunday Telegraph on 31st
December from Andrew Dow said that in last 75 years, 442,000 people were killed
on the roads and 19 million injured.Whilst fatalities have decreased on roads, they have decreased likewise
on railways, hence the relative disparity remains. “Lorries were
responsible for a fifth of all road deaths last year” [21].

The road lobby
argues that road casualties are greater due to the mix of pedestrians and
vehicles. This is easily resolved - at the expense of those who began to use
roads after pedestrians, viz. mechanised road transport. Roads could be fenced
along their entire length as railways were statutorily compelled to do, with
controlled gaps at selected places.

New Messiahs

A second Sunday Telegraph
article [22], highlighted longer gaps between trains as compared to road
vehicles.Such a comparison is
meaningless. A passenger train carries as much as 300 cars [23], at almost
twice their speed. As the safe headroom between road vehicles is one metre for
every one mph [24] the aggregate headroom for 300 cars, at 70 mph, on one
track/lane, would be 21,000 metres, ten times the “long gap”
maintained, for safety reasons,
ahead of a high speed passenger train [25]. If cars travelled at train speeds,
their aggregate headroom would need to equate to 15 times the “long
gap” between trains.A
freight train can convey as much as 200 lorries [26], and travels 25% faster.
Travelling at 60 mph, at one metre for every one mph, they require an aggregate
12,000 metres of headroom, seven times as much as a 75 mphfreightliner [27]. At 75 mph, 200
vehicles would require 15,000 metres aggregate headroom - ten times as much as
one freightliner requires.Figure 1
illustrates the relative headroom disparities:-

Figure 1

This Sunday Telegraph article
quoted Sir Phillip Goodhart who had observed a stretch of the M6 close to the
main London to the North West railway that “was jammed
solid while the rail line which was slightly wider than the M6, had almost no
traffic on it”. Having been responsible for operating the whole of that
route, and as a user of the M6, I can say that such a location is not typical.
Much congestion on roads is caused by bad driving and the ensuing accidents.
The width required for a motorway, with three lanes each side, is 35.6 metres
[28]. The overall width - on a comparable basis - required for a four track
railway is 16.5 metres and 8.08 metres for a two track route [29]. The West
Coast line has two tracks for about half of its length. The railway route is
wider at stations, but these must be compared to service areas that occupy far
more land. In addition, those huge clover leaf junctions on motorways,
especially on the M1/M6 are in a league on their own. The relative requirements
for motorways and railways are depicted in Figure 2. The outer box represents
the width of land and bridge height required for a three lane motorway; the
larger hatched box is the comparative width and bridge height required for a
four track railway; and the smaller hatched box that for a double track
railway. It will be seen that the minimum width required for a three lane
motorway is more than wide enough for two major main lines!

Figure 2

Converting
Roads into Railways

In view of poor
road utilisation, a better option may be to convert some roads into railways.
The annual goods vehicle km of 10.8 billion on motorways [30] equates to only
185 vehicles per hour in each direction.Given the average load of goods vehicles is 5 tons, it represents less
than one decent train load, which would not tax one road lane converted into a
railway. Huge benefits would accrue. Motorway construction and repair costs
would plummet, and contraflows would be much less frequent, leading to higher
average car speeds. Total fuel consumption would fall and fewer lorries would
be imported, leading to an improved balance of payments. Fewer accidents would
reduce costs of the emergency services and the Health Service, whose waiting
lists would fall in consequence. Lay-by’s used as cost free premises for
overnight or weekend lorry parking would be unnecessary.

“Heavy lorry mileage on
journeys over 150 km represents 50% of all mileage and 20% of all goods.Transferring this to rail would
cut total lorry mileage by a half” [31]. If trunk haulage was by rail,
using smaller containers, haulage into towns and villages on shorter vehicles
would slash congestion, and end damage to pavements and verges - some of which
compare unfavourably with ploughed fields.

Converting some roads into railways would not
face the same transitional problems as the converse proposal. Firstly, random
observations indicate that there is significant capacity on existing
freightliner trains.Secondly, the
under-utilisation of roads, to which I referred earlier, allows scope for
re-routing road traffic during the changeover period. Much cross empty mileage
would be eliminated by central control of containers.